the flight and the first day!

I haven’t even been in Costa Rica for 24 hours and it already feels like a place I can get used to. I had a great experience on my flight here and my house is wonderful.

When walking onto my first flight from Minneapolis, I noticed that there was already a woman in my seat. I prepared myself for an awkward situation but she just asked me if I would switch with her husband. This was one of those moments where you realize that everything really does happen for a reason. The adorable couple next to me was flying to Costa Rica also, and we had the same flight out of Texas! They were traveling with an even cuter couple to my left! It was so nice to have them with me to help navigate the Dallas airport. They were so sweet. I was running into them all day long, through customs and getting our luggage. It was nice to not be in a sea full of complete strangers. There were also 6 other students on the same flight as me from Texas to San Jose. It was great to have that time to get to know some of my fellow sol students, which we call solmates. It made it a lot easier to get through the Costa Rican airport.

I arrived at my house at about 11 at night; it was so sweet of my host mom to stay awake and wait for me to get there. So far she hasn’t stopped feeding us, we’ve been drinking all sorts of coffee which I love, and the food is delicious and refreshing. There is this lovely tradition called “cafecito” where all of the houses take a break to drink some coffee together. If you’re out and about during this time, all of the streets smell like coffee! It’s amazing. Today we had pineapple juice and fresh mango, it was the sweetest fruit. My mama tica keeps saying how cold it is here, and it’s 70 degrees outside! A difference of about 80 degrees for me!

Today we just had orientation and we got to meet all of our other solmates. We played games to learn everyone’s names and where we were from. I feel like I already know everyone and there are 34 of us! Tomorrow we start classes, I have two on Mondays. We also have our exams to see which level of classes we should be placed in. I am hoping that I don’t struggle with the oral exam!

So far it doesn’t feel real that I will be in this beautiful country until April, but I am so excited to see what Heredia has in store for me!